01/17/08

Senator Penny Williams Distinguished Lecture Series
in the Arts and Science

    Senator Penny Williams, Tulsa, former Chair of the Senate Education Committee as well as the Legislative Arts Caucus, has been a leader in education, science and technology, and arts and humanities issues in the Oklahoma legislature. After serving four terms in the State House of Representatives, she was elected to the State Senate in 1988.  In 1983, then State Representative Williams introduced House Bill 1296 that created the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. Marshaling co-authors and battling for scarce funds, her tireless advocacy secured the passage of the bill and continuing support for OSSM.

    In appreciation for the far-sighted vision of this special public servant and in tribute to her role as the sine qua non of OSSM, her friends and friends of the school have created and begun the endowment of these lectures that will bring national and international figures in the arts and sciences to the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics. The contribution of the ideas of speakers like those listed below to our state’s intellectual milieu is the greatest and most appropriate gratitude that we can offer Senator Penny Williams.

Lectures

May 3, 2007 - Edouard Brezin, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics at the École Normale Supérieure, Paris
Past President of the French Academy of Sciences

“From the Quantum World to Daily Life”

April 21, 2006 - Irving Weissman, M.D.
Director, Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
Stanford University School of Medicine

“Stem Cells”
The Journey to their Isolation and Use Starting in a Montana High School

April 9, 2003 - Jean D. Wilson, M.D.
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair of Biomedical Research
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

“The Biology of Sex”

April 19, 2001 - Baruch S. Blumberg, M.D., Ph.D.
Distinguished Scientist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center
Professor of Medicine and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania
Nobel Laureate

“New Ideas From Space”

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